Dhellemmes + Reardon in Celeste Jazzkeller, Vienna

Next week I will play the Epsilon on stage for the first time! 

Ladies and gentlemen, the Epsilon!

I didn't post about it for a while but my first real guitar project the Epsilon is finished and it's a great player as much as a real beauty. The idea was to make a guitar both ergonomic and looking wild - one I would want to play on stage -, and if I believe the feedback I've had so far it's not a complete failure. 

The body is made of ash, the neck is maple (neck-through-body construction) and the fretboard is plum (all woods come from Europe). Pickups are handwound The Creamery Custom Double Track Humbuckers (they sound just wonderful!), wraparound bridge and locking tuners are Schaller, knobs and switch are Duesenberg, pickguard is laser cut polished aluminium. 

It was a long and sometimes difficult process (I'll make another post later about the whole story) but I'm delighted with the result. Some of you have been following this blog for years and witnessed my many attempts at designing then making guitars, now I know why I've dedicated so much time and effort: the Epsilon is not only a great achievement for me, but I hope also the first step of a great journey!

 

 

Of course you don't have to believe me when I say it's a great guitar, so I asked Argentinian guitarist extraordinaire Diego Munè to test the Epsilon, and it's like they were made for each other - Diego's music is right for the guitar and he really loves it...

back on track!

Epsilon with early stage transparent black finish

The Epsilon is back on the workbench after a one month interruption. We finally opted for oil finish instead of lacquer, so it won't last very long anymore...

more Epsilon

more Epsilon

more sketches

Music of the week: I don't know if it's just me or if this happens to other people too, but sometimes I figure out that I missed some essential bands even at the time when I was the most obsessed with music - including bands that would have been useful for my musical progress, like Birthday Party (I didn't like the Bad Seeds so I didn't care to listen) or Primus (I think that it was the closest music to what me and my friends were trying to do in my first band, I don't understand how I missed them…). Well a few days ago I discovered Bad Brains… Genuine punk played by musicians who could use their instruments, it's just fantastic!

About the Epsilon, Andreas who is building it back in Germany regularly sends me pictures of his work - I'll select and post some here at some point but if you want to see more and more regularly, you can check the photo album on gUitarREN's Facebook page.

Epsilon, ash, maple, plum

Epsilon template

Here we go! Andreas from Deutsches Tonholz started to work on the Epsilon - this is the template… The guitar itself will have a maple neck through ash body and a plumtree fretboard. Just received this picture and it makes my day!

miscellaneous

Next Wednesday I will play with my new band, the Soft Power Ensemble of Vienna, in Fluc, Vienna, the same venue where we performed with Yuri Landman. The band comprises 9 guitarists, plus drums and bass, and is not far from reaching sonic heavens. 

Didn't have a real band for 10 years, as I was busy with dance, multimedia performances and electronic music - it feels really good! I will post some music here soon.

These are the handwound pickups Jaime Campbell at The Creamery made for the Epsilon. We chose blade humbuckers with alnico 5 magnets for versatility and warmth. 

For some stupid marketing reasons, not-overwound pickups are called 'vintage' - that is in electric guitar business if you don't play metal, you play old school rock… the Epsilon will prove that wrong!

more sketches

You've seen the Epsilon whose prototype is about to be built, at first we planed to have two models built, the other one being the Alpha… I think that we will try to have its prototype crowd-funded once its big sister is ready and proves that our ideas are good… The Alpha is our ergonomic take on the telecaster - that's how bold we are!

Music of the week: for some reasons I managed to dismiss Hanni el Khatib and never listen to any of his song - though I heard a lot about him… I fixed that mistake in the last days and listened to a lot of his live videos on YouTube. I wish I could see him on stage but it seems that Vienna is not on the tours route, nothing I want to see ever passes here!

more sketches

Couldn't draw so much lately, but we've been busy with the Epsilon, and there's been many e-mails exchanged about it between me, Goran - who started the whole project - in Sweden, Andreas from Deutsches Tonholz in Germany, who will build the body, and Jaime from The Creamery in the UK, who will make the pickups… in a few weeks our baby will be born!

Tonight I play in literature café Carioca in Vienna, together with Ines Birkhan reading excerpts of her novel Chrysalis. It's about being enslaved by giant butterflies and I keep exploring noisy drone music with just a theremin and plenty of effect pedals… 

Music of the week: I just ordered the new CD of Kim Gordon's new band Body/Head, I'll tell more about it next time. Otherwise, I really love the single of Dirty Primitives I talked about yesterday, I listen to it all the time!

Epsilon project

In the last months I've been busy with the Epsilon project. I was contacted by a guitar maker in Sweden who proposed me to conceive an ergonomic guitar and have a prototype built - and if things work create a company to have it released… We took plenty of time to exchange about what we really wanted and settled on this model, that I roughly built out of foam. The model should go to a luthier soon... More information on this project when things evolve!